Yankee Candle White Triple Votive Holder

I don’t often find myself buying candleholders when I have plenty of old glass votive holders from my studenty half-price Buy-One-Get-One-Free Glade candle jar days. These days the humble glass votive holder is often seen as a bonus product that is sold alongside any specialised pack of scented candles, and QVC are no stranger to dreaming up sets with the Yankee Candle products they receive. The glass tumbler however isn’t any ordinary piece of equipment – but heat insulated enough to protect the candle in question – and generally any glass tumbler can suffice when it comes to use with any scented votive candle, whether it bears the Yankee Candle brand label or not.

The device however needs to have a wide and deep sizing to accommodate the whole candle, as votives tend to melt down into a blob if you were to use a plate and deemed unsafe, because if the candle goes into a river of melted wax, there’s nothing in an open plate to stop the wax from melting over. A round votive holder usually keeps the original design of the actual candle then and usually if its clear glass, it looks quite nice to have in the home adding a spiritual element as well as offering safety. Most votive glass/holders can also be washed by dishwasher or safely hand washed to remove the last vestiges of scented wax before used again.

All is not lost however if you don’t have a votive holder – deep and wide whisky glasses can also be used as a fine substitute – but votive holders are usually much smaller in shape, have a thicker rim and won’t hurt as much if you accidently break them compared to an expensive whisky glass. At least with both, you're getting heat insulated bases, but as a precaution I always try and use a heat proof coaster on delicate surfaces - because you can never be too sure!

The Price, The Product & The Promise

Two years ago however, a particular product caught my eye when shopping online – not just a votive holder that can hold one, or two votive candles – but three votive candles in succession and to my Celtic senses, a particular novel shape of almost an Irish clover leaf with three “open leaves” or open binnacles where three likewise shaped Yankee Candle votives can be dropped into. Measuring approximately 6cm height by 10.5 cm diameter and 0.5cm wall width, the Yankee Candle triple votive holder is a very well made accessory, sporting a lovely glossy sheen to its China material, robust from its thickness and flat base edge with three additional soft rounded felt feet added to give it a grippy texture (and thus ensuring uniform burning on a level surface.) It is also quite classy due to the smooth, tactile feeling it gives and its creamy colouring overall, making it ideal to blend in with many homes.

The cost online was an unbelievably £14-99 for this accessory and at the time there was no way I was ever going to pay a price like that, but rather wait to see what my local stockist shop could get and check online for any eventual discount. In 2011 just before Christmas, I was more than happy to find that my stockist got a few of these holders in store after my request, and that they had sold very well! The price of the triple votive holder now costs £5-00 and upwards-on average from sites such as www.yankeedirect.com, www.scentedcandleshop.com and on EBAY.co.uk

I would advise strongly to either check these sites or use the image given on Ciao as there are quite a few different candleholders, as my photos on here will show! Otherwise you could end up paying more and for an article that is entirely different!

Quality & Safety

One of the ways in using this candleholder isn’t that you necessarily have to stick to using or burning three votives. I tried with one and it was safe enough for the candle and despite the open “leaves” of the other two binnacles, the votive at the time didn’t collapse into a merged heap, when it had started off in its original shape, contoured by the cylindrical shape of this holder. Through use and experience I find the triple votive is far more suitable for two votive candles at the least, but with two votives burnt in succession, the strength of scent and visual appeal is definitely far more worth it and the candles liable to melt into one another can be done safely, even if you do need to keep guard of any lit candle, regardless of however safe the producing company makes the product. Initially, this would be a worry if the candleholder weren’t sufficiently built to withstand such a feat! However the china material is thick and pleasingly and most surprisingly, heat insulated in use – so much unlike other votive holders where you can’t move the lit candle for fear of burning yourself – or using oven proof gloves in a succession.

Design/Practicality

It is in use that the Triple votive candleholder starts to make a lot more sense, particularly if you are using Yankee Candle votive candles. This is because by trade and reputation alone, the “Yankee Candle Sampler,” votive candles are sample wax candles, never really being anything strong as their tart discs or small candle jars. I don’t often buy the votives knowing that they aren’t very strong, but I have been surprised in the past from Yankee Candle where by discounts to the votives alone (like Christmas) make for very good deals and their colours alone like deep Christmassy red add a likewise seasonal appeal when left in votive holders, be them made of clear glass or even the seasonal themed ones you can also buy.

When I used three votives in succession, the room in which the candles were located gave a very strong scent to the room, and as a result re-affirms my belief that votive candles can be strong, albeit when three are lit at the same time as opposed to one, for extra strength scent delivery!

For the bean counters and budgeters amongst us, the beauty of the 3-spaced triple holder is that you can get a lot more scent using three candles all at once as opposed to one! Yes it means you’re using up a lot more candle wax time – but on the basis that you get 15 hours on average out of ONE Yankee Candle votive, it suddenly begins to make more sense to buy the £1-75 votives on cost alone when buying 3 adding to a total of £5-25 which is even cheaper than the small “Housewarmer” jar candles alone. Yet when adding up the total burning time of 45 hours, you get 5 more hours than from one small jar alone!

Another benefit to the Triple votive holder is that it excites and incites the owner to dabble with trying out experimental scents. This has been a long tradition that the American company have done as a bonus promo to their products – finding out different scent combinations along the way when you put two scents together to dream up your own. Yankee Candle did initially publish their findings online a few years back and you can find extra info about combining some of the scented candles at the end of this review, although their official list is now on a Facebook page.

Downsides/Cleaning

There are a few downsides to this product. Either you'll adore the look of it or not! Another downside is that the holder is not dishwasher safe and carries a sticker label on the base strongly instructing "Do Not Wash." However, to get the last vestiges of wax out from Yankee Candles, I just swirl a bit of lukewarm water to get the last shape of the wick plates and any wax left over. It may say "Do Not Wash," but I feel this is probably a warning for the holder not to be put in a dishwasher. If any wax gets on the outer binnacles/exterior, a damp hot cloth can easily take the melted wax off, using a lukewarm to medium, damp clean cloth. Avoid using detergents though as this can rub off the finish.

I eventually bought another Triple votive holder this year to complement my existing one and the other downside I find from a storage point of view, is that the holders can't stack inside one another - but really - there isn't much else that is likely to annoy here other than for the fact that votive candles (small wick equipped candles) are the only types that can be used in this holder.

Quality & Safety

Back down to earth though, I just love the look of the holder, especially when three votives are being lit at the same time in dim light. The holder doesn’t really light up a room though, so for those buyers thinking it would be a suitable accessory alternative to Yankee Candle’s porcelain shades for the glass jar candles, think again! This isn’t a suitable holder that you’ll be able to depend on if you’re reading a book (or writing reviews to on a PC, alone!) but rather a lovely accessory designed to heighten a Christmas scene, or just for more intimate occasions. I could definitely purchase another triple votive holder for use with dinner parties – it’s compact dimensions aren’t obtrusive enough to get in the way of dinner plates and associated serving platters and I quite like the fact that it’s classic shape blends in with most styles of cutlery and dishes anyway!

Final Thoughts

If you want to get the best scent out of your scented votive candles, and in particularly Yankee Candle votive sampler candles where the scent from one candle alone can be quite low on powering a room, this triple votive holder is well worth seeking, particularly now in 2012 where the prices for this accessory isn’t any more than a lot of their single-votive-glass holders alone. It does infer that you would need three candles lit at the same time to promote the look of the holder, but for some Yankee Candle and scented candle fans in general, I don’t think a lack of availability of candles in their home is likely to affect the outcome of such a purchase!

What I like about the holder is that any other brand can also be used. I've since used Price's candles that were half price in a recent sale, to cheap pound shop votives that usually peter out well before their wicks suggest.

It is definitely a better way for me to consider Yankee Candle products though, rather than spend more with the small Housewarmer jars alone – and let’s be honest would you rather have a small jar candle with one scent alone lit, compared to the open and visual delight of three candles burning, where you additionally and optionally get to custom pick the scents as well as cook up a new scent recipe? I think that’s called versatility and value in its most basic sense! Thanks for reading. ©Nar2 2012

Yankee Candle mixology list:

http://www.dreamsnrainbows.com/ynkmix.ht​m